land-seeker

To both localities he went, not as a land-seeker and home-builder, or to become a creative factor in a permanent community, but as a crude laborer to a market already overcrowded with untrained forces.

The American Negro: What He Was, What He Is, and What He May Become: A Critical and Practical Discussion 1901

In a single sentence these men expressed the ruthless creed of the land-seeker.

A Daughter of the Middle Border Hamlin Garland 1900

By the time he had ridden half a mile, he overtook the land-seeker, whose horse seemed very stiff and slightly lame.

Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs, Late of the Tallapoosa Volunteers; Together with "Taking the Census," and Other Alabama Sketches. By a Country Editor. With a Portrait from Life, and Other Illustrations, by Darley 1845